Real-time analysis and display of incoming launch vehicle and spacecraft telemetry data historically has been limited to textual/numeric displays and simple 2D plots and graphs. Any 3D visualization of flight events was accomplished much later by animation artists depicting an approximation of a given flight event. Vehicle engineers, management, and customers must rely on these abstract numerical and 2D clues during flight to mentally visualize the status of the mission. As more and more factors are included (e.g., rapidly changing vehicle states; earth rotation and revolution around the sun; angles to ground stations and other spacecraft; complicated definitions of attitude and position factors), it becomes extremely difficult to conceptualize the mission.
Various types of flight vehicles exist, such as launch vehicles (that which is utilized in the initial launch from Earth and to transport its payload a certain distance above the Earth's surface), spacecraft (e.g., satellites), and aircraft. There are of course also multiple configurations within each of these general categories of flight vehicles. Limiting any flight vehicle visualization system to a particular flight vehicle configuration would thereby not allow such a system to be utilized for other flight vehicle configurations.
At least in the case of launch vehicles and spacecraft, telemetry data is transmitted from the flight vehicle back to Earth for various purposes. Telemetry data from the flight vehicle may be transmitted to what may be characterized as a TLM processor (e.g., Loral System 90 (TPE), Loral 510, Loral 550, Nighthawk, PowerHawk, Braxton TPS, Defense Systems TPSR (Telemetry Processor System Revised) and TPS2 (Telemetry Processing System 2)). Limiting any flight vehicle visualization system to a particular TLM processor makes any such flight vehicle visualization system reliant/susceptible to the data stream from this single TLM processor. For instance, the data stream from a given TLM processor may include “bad” data, which could then affect the performance of any flight vehicle visualization system receiving data therefrom. Moreover, loss of a communication link between a given TLM processor and any flight vehicle visualization system, as well as this TLM processor ceasing operation, would of course impede the ability for the flight vehicle visualization system to generate an accurate/updated image of the flight vehicle.